Nonresonant interaction of femtosecond laser pulse with centrosymmetric molecules

We have derived a system of equations that describes the evolution of the density matrix of a centrosymmetric molecule interacting with a single nonresonant femtosecond laser pulse. The dynamics of the ground electronic state is expressed in terms of the effective Hamiltonian and the coherences between the ground an excited electronic states are functionals of the ground state density matrix. Using the time-dependent perturbation theory, we have calculated the energy deposited in the molecule as a result of rotational stimulated Raman scattering. The effective absorption coefficient is found to be proportional to the fourth power of the pulse amplitude and has a resonance-like dependence with respect to the pulse duration.